Session 2️⃣: Data Donation Studies (Participant Perspective)
👉 Part of the SPP DFG Project Integrating Data Donations in Survey Infrastructure
What are data donation studies?
Participant perspective, including
📢 Task 1: Inspect your DDPs
📢 Task 2: Try donating your data
Image by Hope House Press via Unsplash
Source: Image by Markus Winkler via Unsplash
👉 Solution: Platforms offer data download packages (DDPs), which users can request and download to inspect data.
👉 Consequence: Researchers uses DDPs as part of user-centric data donation studies.
Please raise your hand ✋ if you…
1) knew about this right?
2) ever tried to request your data?
🤔
In Switzerland, only 8% of members of an online access panel did (Pfiffner & Friemel, 2023, p. 17)
Definition 💡: Data donation studies are a user-centric, privacy-by-design method for collecting digital traces:
For platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, for example… (Hase et al., 2024)
Source: Image by Markus Winkler via Unsplash
Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective
Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective
Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective
Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective
How easy (or hard) did you find it to request your data? Did you encounter any obstacles? 🤔
Different degrees in standardization for data requests (Hase et al., 2024)…
Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective
Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective
📢 Task 1: Inspect your DDPs.
Feel free to work in groups of 2-3 people (around 15 minutes)
Different degrees in standardization for DDP content (Hase et al., 2024)…
Documentation & changes over time
Completeness & scope
Valkenburg et al. (2025). It is time to ensure research access to platform data
Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective
Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective
Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective
Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective
📢 Task 2: Try donating your data.
Upload and inspect your data. If you could not download the data, use the ZIP folder “example data” (see landing page) for this session.
Use this link: https://next.eyra.co/a/nWPJC4?p=999 - replace number after p= with random number. Feel free to work in groups of 2-3 people.
Similar to tracking studies, data donation characterized by (Hase et al., 2024; Hase & Haim, 2024; Keusch et al., 2024):
👉 Not necessarily less biased than survey data - but subject to different bias?
👉 We will talk about this in Session 4️⃣.
Similar to tracking (Kreuter et al., 2020): Is consent really “informed”? (Groot Kormelink et al., 2025; Hase & Haim, 2024)
Similar to tracking (Kreuter et al., 2020): Is consent really “informed”? (Groot Kormelink et al., 2025; Hase & Haim, 2024)
Questions? 🤔
Introduction to Data Donation - TU Ilmenau - Valerie Hase